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Despite Dana White’s repeated claims that Power Slap is safe, there are still numerous critics out there, including several state athletic commissions, that disagree. Counted among those critics is Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, perhaps better known as Dr. Mike on social media.
Dr. Mike, who has a YouTube channel on which he often debunks false medical claims, is also a former boxer with one professional fight to his credit: a unanimous decision loss on the undercard of the Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva event.
This week, he appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show to discuss numerous combat sports-related topics including Power Slap.
“Someone needs to come out and speak out against this,” he said about Power Slap. “It needs to be stopped. I’m actually filming a video on the topic right now on … the most dangerous sports. And to me like, it takes the worst part about combat sports and accelerates it. Like, why is boxing problematic? Repeated a blows to the head if someone’s not protecting themselves. And here, the whole point is to not protect yourself and take blows. So it’s literally taking the unhealthiest aspect and removing the healthiest aspect, which is all the cardio, the training that’s required to box. So like, to me it’s a nonsense sport.”
While states like Florida and California have given Power Slap their approval, others such as Alabama, are trying to ban the “sport.”
In Nevada, one of the states that has also approved Power Slap events, a former Nevada Athletic Commission chairman, Stephen J. Cloobeck, who actually gave Power Slap his blessing, now says he regrets it.
One of Dana White’s defenses of Power Slap is that by having states regulating it, they are making the “sport” safer. “Why wouldn’t you want it to be regulated? We’re taking a lot of the risk out of combat sports. Regulation isn’t about personal taste or preference. Athletic commissions are tasked with protecting adults who are knowingly and willfully choosing to engage in an unarmed combat sport,” White said in 2023.